Maelwys

1000 times this. I did have a habit on Live of always keeping a full set of Warburg Nukes and a Fresh Shivan Shard on each + every toon "just in case" too. But ever since the P2W vendors arrived that's become a full set of Signature Summons and Envenomed Daggers. (Although I'll still make a trip to Bloody Bay occasionally...)

FWIW; whenever I was comparing like-for-like Tanker/Brute/Scrapper builds on Brainstorm earlier I did a few AE farming runs just for shiggles. My Brutes (mainly the /FA and /Stone; since Burn and Brimstone Armor Procs both love Fury) are a little bit ahead of my Tankers now. But Scrappers are still blowing them out of the water for cases where I didn't need 90% resistances + chugging insps and/or the occasional heal/barrier was good enough. So if nothing changes on Test... I suspect that if you're in a massive horde of mobs with constant full target saturation then Tankers and Brutes will be very roughly equal. But Scrappers will win if they (i) have a taunt aura and (ii) can stay upright.

Oh the set bonuses are fine, yeah. I was more referring to the Archetype-Specific bonus granted by the 6th IO in each set (the Proc/Global). Sentinels get a smidge of extra Opportunity and Absorb. Brutes get a smidge of extra Fury and Regen. Scrappers and Stalkers both get effects that produce character-redefining levels of additional damage output. ⚖️ 🙄

The Mastermind and Corruptor ones IMO perform well too; but they're not purely damage focused. Tankers, VEATs and Kheldians each get one really good one; and Controllers, Dominators and Blasters at least get a decent damage proc. Defenders can occasionally have a reason to take theirs for additional mitigation. But Sentinels and Brutes? Utter dogturd. And yes the fact that Scrapper and Stalker ones are so damn good makes it even more noticeable on Brutes.

For me the "most fun" melee powersets are currently Battleaxe, Superstrength (with Cross Punch) and Energy Melee... especially if you pair 'em with Fiery Aura or Rad Armor (yes; even after the nerfs to RA's proc damage on Brainstorm). Technically Stone Armor is disproportionately good on a Brute due to Fury affecting Brimstone armor Procs; but without Burn or Ground Zero it feels a bit meh even if the numbers tell a different story; so the only powerset I'd play actively with it would be BattleAxe. But it's tough for that combo to keep their Blue bar from bottoming out without Ageless. I do think that as things currently stand on Brainstorm; Brutes and Scrappers/Stalkers are very likely shortly going to be pulling ahead of Tankers again. But unfortunately until the sorry state of Brute ATOs gets rectified their damage output is still going to keep trailing noticeably behind the rest. So IMO unless you really need a 90% Resistance cap or Punchvoke; Scrappers (or at least those with an taunt aura from their secondary powerset) will become King of the Hill again for most melee outings.

The availability of high-end IOs and the general state of the game economy are great, IMO. Likewise the new Powersets (over and above what were available end-of-live and even from SCORE) are great too. I still run a private server based on the Ourodev i24 code with very minimal tweaks; because it was the easiest way for me to completely replicate my old characters from Live there and satisfy the nostalgia kick. But I play on Homecoming because it's fun. Sure, I see lots of imbalance across powersets and ATs and plenty of bugs that scream "easy fix" to me... and so I would often take a different direction or focus if it was me in charge of things. However it's important to remember that this is someone else's playground that we've been invited into. And it's a very decent and well maintained playground.

"Best in slot" is a bit of a misleading idea in CoH - in most other MMORPGs there are a small number of fixed equipment slots that are always in the same spot and so folk can work out what the best thing is to put there (at least for each given goal/activity). In CoH you can choose your Power selection and Enhancement slots layout; and when you throw in the effect of various (also customisable) global buffs and set bonuses there's several orders of magnitude more complexity involved. So IMO building a min/maxed character in those other MMOs is like figuring out how to boil a pot of water as quickly as possible... whereas doing so in CoH is more like perfecting a favourite recipe - you first need to have an idea of exactly what sort of taste you're going for; then try to bring out as much of that particular flavour as possible. All that said; here's what I'm using. It's a good balance of survivability plus obscenely high damage output: Mastermind - Mercs - Marine.mbd Would I recommend Mercs/Marine for AE Fire farming? Hell no. AE Farming requires Softcapped Defenses and decent Healing and Resists (Mercs has the latter, but not the former) plus good AoE damage vs level 54 foes (Mercs has a fair amount of AoE damage... but it's spread over all of the summons. The T1 and T2 summons spawn at -2 and -1 to your level; which means that even with a T4 Alpha Slot level 54 foes will be +5 and +4 to them - taking much less damage from those AoE abilities). PLus, you can't chug insps to cap your damage - because that damage is being spread over your henchmen so they'd all need separate red insps running unless you're a /Kin. If you want to AE Farm with a MM; then my advice is (i) "Don't." and (ii) "If you really really have to; then use Bots/ and fight foes that deal Cold or Psychic damage." Robotics is the only MM primary that's ever been worth a damn for AoE damage vs +4s because so much of its AoE capability comes from the T3 pet and its Incendiary Missile Burn Patch Psuedopets; and this is still the case even after the stacking of those patches was nerfed to high heaven a few pages ago. It's also the only MM Primary that can softcap its own Defenses regardless of your Secondary powerset (via Protector Bot Bubbles + Barrier or Radial Clarion + the Aura IOs + Maneuvers). If all you're looking for is a buffbot to follow your Tanker or Brute whilst that Tanker or Brute farms... then my advice is (i) "Don't." and (ii) "If you really really have to; then get an Illusion/Cold Domination Controller." It's a lot more efficient to Active Farm on one account whilst you use your second (and third) account to AFK farm on another separate map. Bringing another toon along on an Active Farm as a buffbot is largely pointless; because you should be capping your own damage anyway (by using a macro to combine inspirations into Reds and chug them as you go) and you shouldn't have any need for additional healing or survivability on a well-built Tanker, Brute or Scrapper (or even some Dominators/Blasters!). Illusion Controllers can leverage Phantom Army to group up more foes (bypassing the regular aggro cap) which makes them a little bit less useless than most... and Cold Dom can increase the Defenses, Fire Resistances and Maximum HP of your main toon if their survivability is lacking (e.g. the build isn't quite fleshed out yet). Disclaimer: I have AE farmed on MMs, very extensively, as a Robotics/Kinetics/Flame vs custom Cold-damage foes on the Asteroid maps. It's possible to drag a melee toon around to assist with the herding; but it doesn't work well in practice (taunt auras work great... if you're only fighting 17 foes at a time). The only other second-account toon that I still occasionally bring on these farms "for fun" is a Crabbermind VEAT; because its AoE attacks with -Res buffs and its Defense Buffs are useful and its disposable summons each have their own aggro cap and can't take orders; so it loses less from me not being "behind the wheel". It's utterly hilarious but not exactly the most efficient.

TBF the Catch of the Day has arrived on Brainstorm

Quick 1st attempt at this; variant times in ORANGE. EnergyMelee/RadArmor Scrapper BRAINSTORM #2: 5:14 TANKER RUN: 8:26 [+61.1% - this may be a bit higher than usual due to the build being very ST Burst damage focused, with only Whirling Hands plus RA's GZ/RT for AoE] BattleAxe/FieryAura Brute BRAINSTORM: 5:16 TANKER RUN: 6:51 [+30.1%] BioArmor/Staff Tanker BRAINSTORM: 7:18 BRUTE RUN: 5:54 [so the Tanker is +23.7% - this may be lower than usual due to the build's attack chain having a large amount of AoE plus IC's bugged Arc on Brainstorm] RadMelee/StoneArmor Brute (The slower-than-usual "AFK AE Farmer" build) BRAINSTORM: 6:21 TANKER RUN: 8:08 [+28.1%] It looks like in general the Tankers are coming in ~30% slower than the Brutes. The Staff Fighting powerset is skewed a bit; but that set has an AoE and two decent Cones, one of which is currently bugged on Brainstorm and is still considerably wider on Tankers (Innocuous Strikes) which is allowing the Tanker to consistently hit more targets. However it's worth noting that despite the buff to Sky Splitter on Brainstorm; Staff is still very light in terms of Burst Single Target damage - it's taking these two Staff toons a lot longer than the other powersets to kill the Elite Boss at the end of the mission; but it's not bad in terms of non-burst AoE damage. Providing its Cone Arcs are wide enough to actually hit things. The EM/RadArmor Scrapper is far faster than its Tanker variant. However that Scrapper is very Single Target burst damage focused. On Live; even without an active Hybrid running or Judgement nukes the Scrapper's Whirling Hands + Ground Zero + Radiation Therapy are able to whittle down the minions/LTs whilst it uses its ST attacks only on the bosses. However on Brainstorm; with the nerfs to GZ and RT this is no longer quite able to kill off the LTs so there's a bit of extra time spent mopping them up and/or dragging them into the next spawn. But it's still consistently able to three-shot the Elite Boss at the end of the mission. The Tanker simply cannot keep up with that level of Single Target damage; and there is very little opportunity for its increased AoE range to matter. The "overcap" mechanic appears to be completely negating any benefit the Tanker might be seeing from a higher Target Cap on Whirling Hands. Also... "playstyle" is probably going to be a big factor here for comparing the results of different players in the Mission Simulator. So for full disclosure: Personally I tend to leap into one enemy group; fire off an AoE; then begin whacking bosses, rotating myself around my currently-targetted Boss to ensure my Cone attacks hit other nearby enemies. Then whenever that group's minions are dead I'll jump into the next group; dragging any remaining LTs and Bosses with me whilst taking ranged potshots at whatever boss I still have targeted. That way my AoEs and Cones are usually able to catch a fair number of foes rather than getting "wasted" on just one target. However in an office map; at the end of each floor I'll pause and mop up any remaining foes before calling the elevator.

Right, throwing a few test times in for some toons I have on Live that will be affected by "Nerfs" this page: These are endgame fully IO-ed builds; min-maxxed for regular gameplay rather than for a specific task like 4-star content or pylon soloing or farming. Galaxy Brain's Office Mission Simulator at +4/x8 with Bosses enabled. Musculature Alpha, Reactive Interface, and Assault Hybrid. No active usage of Incarnates. Average of 3 runs; after a "test run" on each toon first to get my bearings. EnergyMelee/RadArmor Scrapper LIVE: 4:43 BRAINSTORM: 5:32 (This toon was hit harshly by the nerfs to Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy - RT in particular is inflicting a LOT less damage in regular missions) BRAINSTORM #2: 5:14 (Redo using tweaked Radiation Therapy slotting for Healing Aspect + Damage Aspect + 2x Procs instead of Live's Healing Aspect + 4x Procs) BattleAxe/FieryAura Brute LIVE: 5:13 BRAINSTORM: 5:16 (Axe Cyclone's cast time increase is being offset by increased proc activation rate - the resisted pull distance is annoying but has no bearing on performance) BioArmor/Staff Tanker LIVE: 5:59 BRAINSTORM: 7:18 (Obvious Tanker nerfs here. Slightly offset by the buff to Sky Splitter and the fact that Innocuous Strikes is currently bugged with a 135 degree Cone) RadMelee/StoneArmor Brute ("AFK AE Farmer" build so INTENTIONALLY SLOWER THAN A REGULAR BRUTE when playing actively/normally - included here as a "control") LIVE: 6:19 BRAINSTORM: 6:21 (No obvious change here and negligible variation in clear times) I'll see if I can spin up some different Tanker-and-non-Tanker variants on Brainstorm at the weekend for a more like-for-like comparison.

Agreed. Less "ticks" before the boom please.

In case anyone's missed it - there are a few lingering bugs with Innocuous Strikes and Guarded Spin that should be reverted next patch. Brainstorm vs Live: - - - - - - - - - - Now... I have a request based on how the Staff Fighting powerset appears to be currently sitting after all of the above changes: The Staff Fighting powerset is consistently a standout underperformer across the board in terms of damage output; as shown in virtually every single melee powerset comparison thread - typically the only powerset than performs worse is Kinetic Melee. Staff's performance was previously propped up a bit on Tankers because their Global Arc and Radius increases from Gauntlet disproportionally affected it - the Arc size of Guarded Spin and Innocuous Strikes and the Radius of Eye of the Storm were all buffed... but even then Staff still came in well below average in a standard mission like Trapdoor. The long animation times of Staff attacks and the lack of "Build Up" make thematic sense; but they also drastically negatively impact its performance when compared to most other melee powersets. Whilst the set provides a lot of utility via Guarded Spin and perfection stacks granting additional useful effects like Damage Resistance buffs and debuffs; unfortunately this does not make up for its severe lack of damage output - especially its short-term "burst" capability (which is what is useful in quickly taking out problematic enemies or grabbing aggro). The recent tweaks to Sky Splitter (adding a decent chunk of extra damage when under 3 Perfection stacks) have partially addressed Staff's lack of Single Target Burst damage and are much appreciated. But there were only very minor changes to Eye of the Storm's damage so Staff's AoE coverage and Burst damage is still well below par. Therefore... would there be any chance of working a small +Radius/+Arc global buff into "Staff Mastery" in order to grant both Guarded Spin and Innocuous Strikes an increased arc; and Eye of the Storm an increased radius across all ATs without reducing their base damage? IMO that would be the easiest and most balanced route to take here and it also makes conceptual sense for a powerset with a long melee weapon to have a slight additional "reach".

Thanks. My bad on Sweeping Cross - obviously I was so blinkered on Tanker (and Staff!) changes that I missed the Street Justice one! FWIW; as it stands currently on Brainstorm the current state of Innocuous Strikes with the increased arc and almost the same damage seems to be propping up Staff Fighting's overall damage output a fair bit. Since Staff is consistently a standout underperformer across the board in terms of damage output and the recent tweaks to Sky Splitter have partially addressed its ST Burst; it probably makes sense to bump its AoE coverage a bit. So would there be any chance of working a small +Radius/+Arc global buff into Staff Mastery to allow both Guarded Spin and Innocuous Strikes to have an increased arc; and Eye of the Storm to have an increased radius across all ATs? I'll add the request into the Focused Feedback thread; but thought it was worth mentioning here as well given the context + for visibility.

Kin Melee times there are rather telling IMO. Scrapper Willpower gets a Taunt Aura (Rise to the Challenge) to dissuade runners but no offensive buffs... whereas Tanker Shield Defense gets a Taunt Aura plus a damage buff from Against All Odds and a decent AoE in Shield Charge and is still a good 6 minutes slower! (+55.3%) The two Martial Arts toons are roughly the same proportional speed difference too, despite the lack of a Taunt Aura on the Scrapper. (+58.7%)

Sweeping Strike (Dual Blades) indeed appears to have been properly reverted. Shatter (War Mace) indeed appears to have been properly reverted. However Innocuous Strikes (Staff) has apparently not been reverted fully. Currently its effect area is listed as 135 degrees and its base damage is listed as 5x ticks of 16.17 damage. On Live its effect area is listed as 90 degrees and its base damage is listed as 5x ticks of 17.54 damage. Guarded Spin (Staff) has also not yet apparently had its damage reverted fully. Currently its effect area is listed as 90 degrees and its base damage is listed as 6x ticks of 11.28 damage. On Live its effect area is listed as 90 degrees and its base damage is listed as 6x ticks of 12.24 damage. Likewise Sweeping Cross (Street Justice) currently still appears to have not been reverted at all. Currently its effect area is listed as 75degrees and its base damage is listed as 70.58 damage. On Live its effect area is listed as 50degrees and its base damage is listed as 79.24 damage.

Gamma Boost is up to +40% recovery (whenever you're at 100% HP) or about +0.8 End/Sec Particle Shielding is +50% recovery (unenhanceable; and not perma out of the box) or about +1 End/Sec My BattleAxe/ Brute averages about -4.6 End/Sec just by spamming their attacks with no toggles running.

It doesn't; as long as comparing damage output (or even mission completion times) between different Archetypes and Tankers is the goal here. But is it only damage output that we're being asked to test? The bit about Cone attacks makes me think that yes; this is mainly about comparing damage output and/or clear times across different ATs. And if so then Pylon times, Trapdoor times, AE Office Mission Simulator times (Galaxy Brain's still got it published on Test as Arc ID 23878 and on Live as 57885) all work. Therefore Uun's +2x8 Trapdoor should be grand too - I assume that would have been as a Lv50+1 character if the Alpha and Interface slots were active. I'm happy to do some runs over the next few evenings as/when I can find the time; but it'd probably be best if we can all agree on a common test case.

FWIW, because it's not overly spelt out in the patch notes: for Radiation Therapy this line seems to refer to all damage dealt (the initial energy damage, the toxic damage DoT and any damage procs); as well as to the amount of health/endurance recovered. This appears to be using the same mechanic and follow the same exponential diminishing returns curve as "overcap" Tanker AoEs did on a previous Brainstorm build. My /RA Scrapper using it on a small pack of +3 (Lv54) Cimerorans looks like this: 51.96 Energy damage to the first 36.37 Energy damage to the second 25.45 Energy damage to the third 17.81 Energy damage to the fourth 12.47 Energy damage to the fifth 8.72 Energy damage to the sixth etc. etc. Note that proc damage should be higher than in this screenshot as it's currently still bugged; but it's going to be adding much less damage to large packs than on Live. Compared to Live... when slotted up with damage procs and a Musculature Alpha slot; per activation you can expect Radiation Therapy to be doing roughly the same damage as before (or even slightly higher) to a single target; but half of the previous damage to 5-6 targets and only a third of the previous damage to 10 Targets. The table below shows typical average damage per activation on Live and Brainstorm; including T4 Musculature Core: Targets: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 LIVE (4x Procs) Energy Damage 18.14284 18.14284 18.14284 18.14284 18.14284 18.14284 18.14284 18.14284 18.14284 18.14284 Toxic DoT Damage 22.67873 22.67873 22.67873 22.67873 22.67873 22.67873 22.67873 22.67873 22.67873 22.67873 Avg Proc Damage (x4) 258.3004 258.3004 258.3004 258.3004 258.3004 258.3004 258.3004 258.3004 258.3004 258.3004 Total: 299.1219 299.1219 299.1219 299.1219 299.1219 299.1219 299.1219 299.1219 299.1219 299.1219 Cumulative Total: 299.1219 598.2438 897.3658 1196.488 1495.61 1794.732 2093.853 2392.975 2692.097 2991.219 BRAINSTORM (4x Procs) Energy Damage 68.1935 47.73545 33.41482 23.39037 16.37326 11.46128 8.022897 5.616028 3.93122 2.751854 Toxic DoT Damage 85.26 59.682 41.7774 29.24418 20.47093 14.32965 10.03075 7.021528 4.915069 3.440549 Avg Proc Damage (x4) 134.088 93.86162 65.70313 45.99219 32.19453 22.53617 15.77532 11.04273 7.729908 5.410935 Total: 287.5415 201.2791 140.8953 98.62674 69.03872 48.3271 33.82897 23.68028 16.5762 11.60334 Cumulative Total: 287.5415 488.8206 629.7159 728.3427 797.3814 845.7085 879.5375 903.2178 919.7939 931.3973 BRAINSTORM (3x Procs plus Lv50+5 Dmg IO) Energy Damage 93.1194 65.18358 45.62851 31.93995 22.35797 15.65058 10.9554 7.668783 5.368148 3.757704 Toxic DoT Damage 116.424 81.4968 57.04776 39.93343 27.9534 19.56738 13.69717 9.588017 6.711612 4.698128 Avg Proc Damage (x3) 100.566 70.39621 49.27735 34.49414 24.1459 16.90213 11.83149 8.282044 5.797431 4.058202 Total: 310.1094 217.0766 151.9536 106.3675 74.45727 52.12009 36.48406 25.53884 17.87719 12.51403 Cumulative Total: 310.1094 527.186 679.1396 785.5072 859.9644 912.0845 948.5686 974.1074 991.9846 1004.499 BRAINSTORM (2x Procs plus 2x Lv50+5 Dmg IO) Energy Damage 107.2989 75.10926 52.57648 36.80354 25.76248 18.03373 12.62361 8.83653 6.185571 4.329899 Toxic DoT Damage 134.1522 93.90654 65.73458 46.0142 32.20994 22.54696 15.78287 11.04801 7.733607 5.413525 Avg Proc Damage (x2) 67.04401 46.93081 32.85157 22.9961 16.09727 11.26809 7.887661 5.521363 3.864954 2.705468 Total: 308.4952 215.9466 151.1626 105.8138 74.06969 51.84878 36.29415 25.4059 17.78413 12.44889 Cumulative Total: 308.4952 524.4418 675.6044 781.4182 855.4879 907.3367 943.6308 969.0367 986.8209 999.2698 And this only tells part of the story - because of the new "Adaptive Recharge" it will also cycle much faster than before vs 1 target but much longer vs 10 targets. So as Shin pointed out earlier in the thread... realistically you could now completely ignore the damage Radiation Therapy inflicts and just use it as a mule for 5-piece Panacea (providing you have sufficient Global Accuracy!). However if you still want to leverage it for damage as well then from what I can tell the best balance is going to be: (Obliteration IOs are Dam + Dam/Rech; Touch of the Nictus IOs are Heal + Heal/Rech + Acc/EndRed/Heal + Proc) On my Scrapper this slotting seems to be producing the optimum damage on Brainstorm over time, regardless of how many targets I'm fighting. Compared to my 4-proc slotting on Live it's working out at ~143.4% of its previous damage over time vs one target, but only ~24.1% vs ten targets. 1-Proc version on Brainstorm: vs 1 foe (every 16.128 secs) = 16.05839 DPS [258.9896 per activation] vs 10 foes (every 31.068 secs) = 27.00247 DPS [838.9127 per activation] 4-proc version on Live: vs 1 foe (every 26.718 secs) = 11.19552 DPS [299.1219 per activation] vs 10 foes (every 26.718 secs) = 111.9552 DPS [2991.219 per activation] Personally I've found it to be a noteworthy boost to survivability if I'm fighting only one target like an AV; and the DPS bump vs 1 foe means that using it for that purpose hasn't been quite as harmful to my DPA as it would otherwise be. However it's still a very noteworthy loss in AoE Damage output whenever I'm herding mooks. Or if you're inf-rich and don't overly care about completely ED-capping its Healing Aspect: (Obliteration IOs are Dam + Dam/Rech + proc; HO is an Acc/Heal; Touch of the Nictus IOs are Heal + Proc) 2-Proc version on Brainstorm: vs 1 foe (every 17.968 secs) = 16.99362 DPS [305.3414 per activation] vs 10 foes (every 34.758 secs) = 28.45544 DPS [989.0543 per activation] Also... if you really need more recovery (Battle Axe?) then the 'Theft of Essence' +Endurance Proc still works fairly well despite being affected by the diminishing returns: (Obliteration IOs are Dam + Dam/Rech; Theft of Essence IOs are Heal + Heal/Rech + Acc/Heal + Proc)

Good News: Cones are now fixed as of Build #6. Bad News: the "Overcap" damage reduction for regular AoEs is currently still a flat (and IMO overly harsh) -67%. Make that "Not Quite So Good News": Several cones appear to have been missed out, so currently not all of them have yet been "reverted". From what I can tell Sweeping Cross, Sweeping Strike, Shatter, Innocuous Strikes and Guarded Spin are all still operating with reduced base damage compared to Live. (and the listed Arcs or Radius are still apparently inflated in all of them except Guarded Spin which just has a wonky damage figure...) All the rest I looked at seem to be fine; but I may have missed a few others in my rather quick flickthrough on Brainstorm earlier this morning.

True. But in the (rare) event that all your henchmen need preemptive mez protection then it's quite possible to keep ID up on all of them (and/or on all of your squishier teammates) individually... although it's annoying to have to mentally keep track of who has it because there is no difference in the buff icons. On a different AT where your character's offensive performance is gated by their own attack animations; spamming short-duration buffs results in a pretty major offensive performance hit - but that's not true on a /Kinetics MM as you can still issue orders to your henchmen in the middle of animation cycles. Which is why I noted that "there is such a negligible performance hit for the MM themselves to spam it given their low damage scalars". Although to be fair IMO the Resistance Buff is ordinarily sufficient; especially if you're running Clarion. (and if you're Bots/ then you really should be running Radial Clarion...)

Not for MMs, no. Increase Density, for example, is actually one of the best powers in the set for them (because its' Mez protection and Resistance buff benefits all your henchmen; and there is such a negligible performance hit for the MM themselves to spam it given their low damage scalars). Likewise Speed Boost is useful not for the recharge buff but for the recovery increase - plenty of henchmen ordinarily run themselves dry once upgraded, and Transference is much less useful for Ranged sets. Siphon Power and Siphon Speed are useful also. SP helps keep your flock at the Damage cap whenever mob density is lower; and both provide useful damage mitigation vs tougher targets like AVs. And as for Transfusion... srsly? It's a powerful AoE heal with a -Regen debuff on a set with Henchmen. Repel is dogturd, granted. Even whenever I extensively prodded at it after the Bonfire nerfs I was unable to get it to a point where it was providing useful damage mitigation via Knockdown, and it practically requires constant Transference spam. Personally I still think that Kinetics on a MM (and specifically a Robotics MM) is the best and most effective flavour of Kinetics. Everything (including you) sits at the Defense softcap constantly, with extremely high damage resistances, Mez protection, self-healing capability, etc. never mind being able to cap your own damage and floor an AV's Regeneration. The only downside is that it's extremely busy.

As of the most recent patch on Brainstorm they've taken the enhanced radius and arcs away from the Cones, but left their base damage alone. AoEs on the other hand have had their base damage lowered to match their wider enhanced radius. The maximum target limit on most Tanker AoEs and Cones is still higher than other ATs, but any hits on targets above the regular limit are now being subject to a major reduction in damage (currently -67%, although we've been asking for that to be made a bit less harsh)

Good News: Cones are now fixed as of Build #6. Bad News: the "Overcap" damage reduction for regular AoEs is currently still a flat (and IMO overly harsh) -67%.